coffee stirred by thumb:Tales of the Frozen Logger

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: Stewart
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 11:33 PM

I probably shouldn't mention this, but there is a parody called The Frozen Jogger that I've heard snatches of, but not the whole thing. I think it came out of Vancouver. Anybody know it? Otherwise, the original I've known for a long time and it is still a favorite.

Cheers,

S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: lesblank
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 10:14 PM

The best version of this ditty that I've heard is done by Steve Gillette and his wife Cindy Mangsten on their "Live in Concert at The Arc" CD on Compass Rose Music.

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: Haruo
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 10:12 PM

Deckman, do you know where the original Jim Stevens version can be seen or heard?

Liland

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: Deckman
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 10:09 PM

The "Frozen Logger" was written by the late Jim Stevens, of Aberdeen Wa. I had the pleasure of meeting him in 1959. As a youngster of 12, he went into the Northwest woods as a cooks helper in the logging camps. He wrote the "Frozen Logger" and "THE PAUL BUNYON TALES" based on stories he heard in the bunkhouse at night. He was a buddy of the late Ivar Haglund, famous Seattle restaurant owner, Iver's Acres of Clams. Jim wrote the material for the "Keep Washington Green Campaign" that Ivar sang on Seattle radio in the late forties and early fifties. By the way, his original writing differs somewhat from the populiar recorded and written versions.

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: John of the Hill
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 10:09 PM

This is one of the songs my mother used to sing to us while she ironed clothes. The Devil and The Farmer's Wife was another. Never dreamed at the time that I was being immersed into the folkstream, or that 22 years after her death I would hear her voice as clearly as ever. John

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: Haruo
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 10:05 PM

The Esperanto version by Marta Evans, not the most model Esperanto but fun to sing, is in Kantfesto I and will probably sooner or later appear on my website. Sooner if anyone evinces interest. Later otherwise.

Liland

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 10:02 PM

WEll of course, NO ONE but a logger stirs coffee with his thumb!

Spaw

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: Midchuck
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 09:55 PM

Damn. You beat me because I went into the DT to check, first. They're there. Proper title is The Frozen Logger.

Peter

Subject: RE: coffee stirred by thumb
From: Amergin
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 09:52 PM

That sounds like the Frozen Logger. The lyrics are in the DT I believe.....

Subject: coffee stirred by thumb, song
From: Rincon Roy
Date: 02 Jan 01 - 09:49 PM

Heard terrific (& goofy) song on radio this weekend. I want to know who sings it & where I can I track down a recording. The lyric goes thusly: Seems there's this waitress in a small town who notices a customer stirring his coffee with his thumb, just like her late love, a lumberjack, did. The song is full of crazy images of her dearly departed. Example, he didn't shave his beard, but just pounded the whiskers back into his face with a hammer & chewed the ends off on the inside instead. (if the author of this lyric just happens to be reading this: you are one funny person!)

Subject: RE: frozen logger
From: lohouse8
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 10:08 PM

Here's another verse. Used to use it to end the song sometimes. Can't remember where I picked it up.

"They found him in the morning, a poor sad frozen ghost,
And they tied him up in the stable, as a horse's hitching post.
Some day some hot horse will find him, and back to me he'll come.
And, I will proudly watch him, stir his coffee with his thumb."

Subject: RE: frozen logger
From: Allan S.
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 02:23 PM

JOhn- I,m not sure where that verse came from It does appear in the 1955 ed. of Song Fest -By Dick Best But I heard it in 1951 at the U- Connceticut Outing Club. At that time noone else sang that last verse. Actually I don't know who wrote the song. Any Ideas?? Folk Process???? Allan.S

Subject: RE: frozen logger
From: Einnor
Date: 13 Oct 98 - 01:14 AM

Ha ha. I could tell you all kinds of wild stories about those wild loggers of the frozen north cause I felled timber for 20 plus years and those song lyrics are all true.

Subject: RE: frozen logger
From: Pete Peterson
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 09:06 PM

According to an old Sing Out, Ernie Marrs added the verse

And when he went out hunting,
He never fired a shell
He'd just pull off his logging boots
And killed them with the smell

which goes, of course, right after
"He never shaved the whiskers..."

PETE

Subject: RE: frozen logger
From: john
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 01:55 PM

Are you saying that the line about"they tried in vain etc" was not in the original version?

I also saw a line " The snow it tried to freeze him It tried to do him dirt At 80 degrees below zero he buttoned up his shirt" Where do you suppose that came from?

Subject: RE: frozen logger
From:
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 09:44 AM

I am not sure but I believe the last line THey tried in vain to thaw hin and if you believe me sir Etc Etc. first appeared among members of IOCA [Intercollegiate Outing Club Association] I the 1950's [the good years] I only heard Outing clubbers sing it.

Allan S..

Subject: RE: frozen logger
From: rosebrook
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 09:24 AM

Hi,

If you search the database for [frozen logger], you would find it.

THE FROZEN LOGGER (DT Version)
(James Stevens)

As I sat down one evening within a small cafe,
A forty year old waitress to me these words did say:

"I see that you are a logger, and not just a common bum,
'Cause nobody but a logger stirs his coffee with is thumb.

My lover was a logger, there's none like him today;
If you'd pour whiskey on it he could eat a bale of hay

He never shaved his whiskers from off of his horny hide;
He'd just drive them in with a hammer and bite them off inside.

My lover came to see me upon one freezing day;
He held me in his fond embrace which broke three vertebrae.

He kissed me when we parted, so hard that he broke my jaw;
I could not speak to tell him he'd forgot his mackinaw.

I saw my lover leaving, sauntering through the snow,
Going gaily homeward at forty-eight below.

The weather it tried to freeze him, it tried its level best;
At a hundred degrees below zero, he buttoned up his vest.

It froze clean through to China, it froze to the stars above;
At a thousand degrees below zero, it froze my logger love.

They tried in vain to thaw him, and would you believe me, sir
They made him into axeblades, to chop the Douglas fir.

And so I lost my lover, and to this cafe I come,
And here I wait till someone stirs his coffee with his thumb."

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Words and music by James Stevens
@work @west @love @logger
filename[ FROZLOGR
TUNE FILE: FROZLOGR
CLICK TO PLAY
DC

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Words and music by James Stevens

Subject: frozen logger
From:
Date: 12 Oct 98 - 09:16 AM

Looking for the lyrics for "The Frozen Logger"